BROWNE, Peter.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Human Understanding. First edition of the author's systematic, anonymous analysis of human epistemology, his "first major contribution to philosophical theology" (Winnett, p. 102), and a challenge to John Locke's theory of ideas. In 1696, John Toland published Christianity not Mysterious, in which he adapts John Locke's theories of knowledge to contend that all Christian doctrines had to be comprehensible by human reason and not rooted simply in faith. As this argument could be construed to suggest that the mystery of the Trinity should be rejected, Toland's tract sparked a considerable Deist controversy.In Human Understanding, Peter Browne (c.1665-1735), Bishop of Cork and Ross, responds to the arguments of Toland and Locke by arguing that Christian mysteries are, indeed, rationally comprehensible. By so doing, Browne refines his famous argument that knowledge of God was essentially possible by rational analogy.The work provoked an attack on Browne by George Berkeley, his one-time pupil, who drew on the Human Understanding to question Browne's religious orthodoxy.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.